Dreams we don't Dare to Seek
by Elisabeth Harker
Summary: How would Sarah and Alfred's relationship have progressed, had Krolock never invited Sarah to the ball?  AU.


Notes: I don't own Tanz der Vampire. This story was written as a gift for Valancy.

.;.;.;.;

Sarah and Alfred elope together. She doesn't agree to the idea the first time he asks her, or even the second, and he drives himself crazy trying to figure out if her refusals are coy or heartfelt. It gives him time, at any rate and he traipses through that dusty castle behind Abronsius and nearly scares himself to death, only to find nothing within but cobwebs and bat droppings - not even actual bats! Only their droppings, which the professor examines closely before declaring that they are too old to mean anything.

The night that he and Sarah run away, she is wearing a thin white dress, and a heavy shawl which matches the one that he mother always wears in all but color. When he offers her his coat to protect her against the Transylvanian winter, she refuses, saying that she _will_ be a lady no matter what else she is doing. He catches her frowning down at the frayed edges of her cloak at some point during the first leg of their long train journey, and he uses most of the money is his pocket to buy her a new one - blue, with a touch of lace around the trim. He thinks it's very pretty, and doesn't much mind that he can't afford to eat more than one simple meal a day for the rest of their trip.

A hasty marriage ceremony is performed in Budapest. She enjoys exploring the streets of the city, even though Alfred can't afford to take her into any of the grand old hotels and opera houses. It's her first taste of freedom, and it's intoxicating. She slips away from him one night, and he searches, and paces, and worries and worries that she'll never come back.

"Where were you?" He asks, when she comes home, humming a tune to herself.

"I met a viscount," she says proudly. "He brought me to a concert."

"What?" He responds, not very cleverly, but it's all he can think to say, with his heart beating as quickly as it is.

"Don't fuss, I didn't even kiss him, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was lying about his title. He was a very strange man. I feel like such a woman of the world now, Alfred! It's all out there, and I can finally see it."

She kisses him on the cheek as if she hadn't done anything wrong, and it's too easy to forgive her. She controls his every feeling, and Alfred wouldn't have it any other way.

His home is in one of the student apartments at his university. It's no bigger than a closet, and the tiny wooden expanse of floor between the door and his bed creaks loudly when they walk across it. He tries not to look at her disappointed features, but instead he leads her to a little archway at the end of the room.

"Look," he says, pointing to the small bathtub there.

"There's no door," she points out.

"W-well… well, you see, we're married now, so I thought perhaps you wouldn't…" he stammers until he notices that she is grinning in a mischievous way that makes him feel warm all over.

"I'd like to give it a try," she says. "You'll have to clean it first. It's only big enough for one, and the bed is only big enough for one, but we'll manage."

They do manage. Sarah and Alfred are both very resourceful.

After three days, Alfred thinks he knows everything about Sarah, but little by little, she manages to surprise him.

When he gives her her own key to his room, so that she can comes and go as she pleases, she declares it a "very good gift", though he'd only thought it a basic courtesy. He thinks she likes her key better than she likes her new shawl. Whenever she looks at it, she smiles.

When he asks her if she believes in the vampires that Abronsius chases, he expects her to laugh and say that they are only a myth created by the peasants of her backwater village, but instead she pauses to think it over.

"I think there's more to life than we can see easily, and some things we can't even begin to understand," She says.

"Like demons and angels and everything in between," Alfred suggests, feeling very philosophical indeed.

Sarah laughs.

"I understand angels perfectly," she says. "You're one, after all."

Alfred flushes, and wishes he'd thought to give her such a nice compliment, but her next words are icy cold.

"I wonder," she says, "What it would be like to be damned? I hear those vampires live very dangerous lives."

Alfred wants to tell her that vampires don't live, but his tongue feels thick and stupid in his mouth.

… and finally, there comes a night when Sarah voices the thoughts that scare Alfred the most, though they'd been on his mind too, and fill him with a secret thrill.

It happens five years after they first move to Konigsberg, and by this time they've moved from a disappointingly small apartment to a disappointingly small house.

Sarah is standing at the window, looking out towards the stars. The night is cold, and she is large with child, and Alfred worries that she will catch a chill. 

"There's more," Sarah says, sounding young and petulant.

"What do you mean?" Alfred asks.

"There's more to the night. There is something else out there, and I _will_ find it."

"If you talk like that, it'll find you," Alfred warns.

He remembers the one night he spent in the vampires' castle (even the distinct lack of vampires could not stop him from thinking of it as such.), and the dream he had there. He'd seen Sarah in the dream, radiant in red boots, unaware of any danger as she joined in an evil, bloody dance. In the dream, he'd tried to rescue her, only to become a monster himself. It was terrifying, but exhilarating as well. He'd had the dream many times since that night, and now it was thoroughly printed on his mind.

"If something wants to come for me," says Sarah, "then let it. If it's bad, we'll fight against it, and if it's terrible, we'll succumb to it. Wouldn't that be interesting?"

"No," Alfred says firmly.

He never quite admits, that somewhere deep inside of him, he wants to give Sarah another answer entirely.


End file.
